This also has never made sense to me.
Proudly declaring that they “Don’t do computers” as if somehow the tool that’s ubiquitous in every workplace to enable their efficiency, is beneath them.
As a later comment points out if you treated any other standard office tool necessary for your job like that, you’d be fired.
I never understood it. If they had to use any other standard office tool 8 hours a day, 5 days a week for the last 10 years and still couldn’t perform basic tasks, they would be fired! Why are computers an exception?
I’m not saying that everyone should be able to do the things I do with computers. I’m saying that if you can’t find your start menu, don’t know what icons to click on, don’t even know the names of the applications you use — well, the robots are coming for your job first. And damn soon, too.
It’s like getting in a car (to return to the tried and true car analogies) and forgetting how to use the steering wheel and needing it to be explained every single time. It just makes no sense.
Proudly declaring that they “Don’t do computers” as if somehow the tool that’s ubiquitous in every workplace to enable their efficiency, is beneath them….I never understood it. If they had to use any other standard office tool 8 hours a day, 5 days a week for the last 10 years and still couldn’t perform basic tasks, they would be fired! Why are computers an exception?
Maybe it’s a late GenX and below phenomenon but I’ve worked with people who had that exact same attitude and they still continued to draw paychecks and get promoted. What kills me is that they weren’t even good at their jobs in other ways that I could see (they were all Boomers and older). They were actively bad, like “slow everyone down and cause major problems” bad. I think maybe “computers” is linked to “youngsters” and that puts a devaluing halo on it for everyone except a very few privileged young people in certain industries. Age discrimination is real but I feel like there’s no magical age where you’re not too young or too old to be respected, especially if you’re a woman.
“What kills me is that they weren’t even good at their jobs in other ways that I could see (they were all Boomers and older).”
I’ve noticed this as well — the “I’m bad at computers” crowd is almost always terrible at the rest of their assigned tasks, too. I wonder if it’s just a sign of general cognitive limitation?
Possibly. I judged my boss and co-workers as people who would have had problems with any college classes that were not “regurgitate answers.” The accountant had many personal problems when she did this and she retired two years later.
It’s definitely a cognitive limitation to be unwilling and/or unable to learn new things and these people benefited from the “stay in one place for decades and get pensions and unlimited vacation” system that was never available to me. They had no real incentive to learn new things since the were supported by either their husbands in some fashion who either did blue collar work for the government or drew a pension from the government.